


between small spaces

by salakavala



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternative title: Krem is always right and the Bull should know it, Fluffy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, a little ado about Dorian's birthright, but it gets resolved, there is a misunderstanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-19 00:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16129640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salakavala/pseuds/salakavala
Summary: The Bull means it as a friendly gesture, Dorian interprets it differently, and Krem doesn't say 'I told you so', exactly, but it's definitely implied.





	between small spaces

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a about a year ago, but then I thought I'd turn it into a series or something and decided not to publish it quite yet. Well, that series will probably never come, and since I write fics to share them, I see no sense in _not sharing_ a finished story. So, have this little one-shot now!

 

 

Looking back, the Bull should've listened to Krem.

“You sure you want to stick your horns into that mess, Chief?” Krem had asked, after they’d found out about the issue with Dorian’s amulet – or rather, the Bull had pestered Dorian about it until he'd grudgingly explained the deal. “He did say he didn’t want your help.”

“Nah,” the Bull had answered, so sure of himself. “I just mentioned it to the boss in the passing. It’s all on her.”

Krem had only shaken his head at that.

The Bull had shrugged at him then, but now he wished he’d heeded Krem’s words, because Dorian was standing in his room and pulling a large hood off his head with a knowing smirk playing on his lips.

Any other time, it would’ve been a welcomed sight – shit, how long had he been dropping hints and open invitations? – but now Dorian’s eyes remained sharp and calculating behind his carefully crafted mask, and every alarm in the Bull’s mind screamed _wrong_.

“No,” he said.

“No?” Dorian asked, the smirk still in place, brow lifted. Looked pretty convincing, too, if you didn’t look carefully. If you hadn’t been looking carefully for a while now.

“No,” the Bull repeated.

His firm tone seemed to  drive the point home: Dorian’s smile froze,  his mask cracked with a small frown just a bit.

“Strangest thing, that,” said Dorian. “as you’ve made your desires exceptionally clear, considering all that talk about open doors and exploring the forbidden. Mind you, I wholeheartedly agree that your particular manner of flirting has been rather atrocious, but it did deliver the essential message. A message that now seems to have changed, apparently.”

T he Bull shook his head. “You’re here because of the amulet.” The way Dorian’s  jaw tensed confirmed his suspicion. Dorian was there to pay a debt – a debt he didn’t even  owe – and it looked like he intended to pay it with the only  currency he  had on himself .

W orse: with the only  currency he thought the Bull wanted to get paid  in .

He felt sick.

“You don’t owe me anything, Dorian.”

That terrible smile finally slipped from Dorian’s face and his tone changed entirely. “I don’t understand this game.”

“There’s no game.”

It was a wrong thing to say, evidently. A dark cloud settled over Dorian’s features and his stormy eyes flashed with lightning. His hands jerked at his sides. “No game, he says! It had nothing to do with you, Bull. It’s _my_ Birthright, _my_ affair. I lost it, and it was for me to get it back. Not for you, not for the Inquisitor. Maker!” Dorian dragged his fingers through his hair, then clenched and unclenched them like he had too much energy and didn't know how to disperse it. “Like she isn’t running on ridiculous errands across the southern Thedas as it is! Like they aren’t already talking!”

_You really sure, Chief?_ Yeah, Krem, point taken. 

“It had absolutely nothing to do with you,” Dorian repeated in almost a hiss. “I told you from the start that I didn’t want you to do anything. I specifically told you. But when I asked our dear Inquisitor where she’d heard about the amulet, whose name did she drop if not yours?”

The Bull shrugged, matter-of-fact.  “ Didn’t do anything. S imply mentioned it to her. ”  Dorian hadn’t asked him to keep it secret, although the Bull couldn’t pretend to be dim enough to think that the request for silence had not been implied. Yeah. He’d messed up. He’d messed up big time.

“You’re Ben-Hassrath, Bull. You never _simply mention_ anything. ”

He was right; the Bull’d had no doubt that Lavellan would dash to help Dorian if she knew about his problem. But no one had forced her into anything. She'd had the choice, and she’d made it herself. That asshole Ponchard would not have willingly parted with Dorian's amulet for anyone lesser than the Inquisitor herself.

Dorian, of course, misread his silence. “Now that we’re on the same page, I’d prefer to be straightforward about this. What is it you want then? Surely you’re aware that I’ve no money to speak of, and with what the Inquisition is paying you, I doubt you need it, anyway. I hardly have any information of significant importance to your Qun, either, so if you simply wish to keep me in debt -”

“Stop.” The Bull’s head was hurting. He’d made a mistake. He liked Dorian, and he’d let that blind him enough to disregard all that he knew about the Imperium just to make a friendly gesture. He should have just listened to Krem. From now on he’d always listen to Krem.

Dorian crossed his arms tightly against his chest. He still hadn’t moved from where he stood, like his feet had grown roots. He looked a bit like the Bull had just got up and struck him. “I don’t understand you. If this is some Ben-Hassrath way of passing time -”

“Dorian,” the Bull said. “There’s nothing I want from you.”

That, at least, finally silenced Dorian. For what felt like a long time, too, until he finally shifted. “Ah. Very well. Good night; it does appear to be rather late.”

He turned and briskly walked to the door leading to the battlements. He  pulled his hood back on  and made to open the door, but halted, hand hovering over the bolt. Whether he fumbled for words or waited for the Bull to say something, the Bull didn’t know, because soon  Dorian pushed the door open and slipped into the night without a glance back.

–

“I just wanted to do right by him. A bit like giving a gift,” the Bull said to Krem, on the next day. Krem, of course, sighed like it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.

“Chief, you want to give a guy a gift, you buy him scents or give flowers or some other crap. But if you return to him something that belonged to him and that he was trying to get back, it’s called doing a favour. And back in Tevinter favours are all about who holds who by the neck.”

“That’s fucked up,” the Bull told him.

Krem only shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s how it works in Dorian’s circles.”

Two days later the boss herself stopped by the tavern. She immediately made her way to the Bull. “He talked with you, too?” she asked him, wrenching her wrists. She never seemed quite at ease with him. “I’m sorry I told him that it was you who brought the matter to my attention, Bull. I had no idea he’d react like that.”

He didn’t blame her, not when he was the one to make the mistake to begin with. “No sweat, boss. Dorian’s got his own ideas about how the world’s turning. Had it from Krem that you can’t really get it if you’re not from Tevinter.”

“We’re not in Tevinter, though,” Killinar said suddenly, harshly. Then, louder, voice rising, “We’re _not in fucking Tevinter_ , why can’t he just -? He should understand that.”

She left, and days went on normally after that. Well, normally in the sense that Dorian now spent much less time at the tavern, and whenever they’d bump into each other, he’d always have his mask firmly in place.  Then the  b oss left for an expedition in Emprise du Lion, taking Dorian along, and soon after that the Bull headed for Orlais  with his boys to meet with other noteworthy merc bands.

The Inquisitor was already back when the Chargers returned to Skyhold. Apparently she’d had another, more private mission besides the liberation of a mining town, because on that same evening there was a knock on the Bull’s door, and Dorian slipped in the same way he had slipped out on that night a few weeks back – quietly, like a thief. His body language spoke of the same determination the Bull had last seen in Haven, the night when Corypheus had attacked. When Dorian had been prepared to crash and burn and do so with a fight.

“Hey,” the Bull said and continued undoing his brace.

“Bull,” said Dorian, and opened his mouth for something, but then recoiled and added instead, “I trust your trip was well.” He tugged down his hood. He never came to the Bull’s room without, it seemed.

“Yeah, pretty good. Think we got most of the important groups to lean towards the Inquisition. Long trip though.” He nodded at the brace, which he pushed under the foot of the bed.

“I know it’s rather late,” Dorian hastened to say. His eyes flickered to the bottle of wine the Bull had dug out from the bottom of his wardrobe, where he’d been keeping it for quiet, slow evenings like he thought this'd be. “And that you must be tired, or, or expecting other company. I only… if you have a moment? I can come back later, of course.”

H e looked increasingly anxious; tonight, his mask fit ill on his face. He still hadn’t left the spot by the door.

“Nope, all free,” the Bull said and gestured at the chair by his desk. Dorian didn’t move.

“I only wish to apologise. I am aware – have been _made aware_ – that the last time I was here I behaved in an unreasonable manner. I was unfair to you. It appears my skills at receiving a gift are rather ghastly.”

_A favour_ , Krem’s voice echoed in the Bull’s head, but he cracked a smile, anyway. “ The  b oss speak with you too?”

Dorian’s answering smile was tentative. “Something like that. You… are a far better man than coercing someone into bed with you. I well know that. Thank you. For your help with the amulet. It was very gracious of you, and I remain in your- I appreciate the gesture.” He nodded his head in an elegant little bow.

“Hey, any time, big guy.”

“Well, now that this has been cleared between us, I’ll leave you to whatever I interrupted. Good night, Bull.” He turned to leave.

“Wait,” the Bull said, before he’d even made the decision to. But it struck him with an urgent realisation that he did not want Dorian to go. There was a conversation unfinished there, somewhere. “Why not stay for a bit, if you don’t have other plans? I’ve got an Antivan red here, wouldn’t mind some company to share it with. Chat a bit, wind down after the trip,” he added when Dorian’s shoulders tensed just so at the invitation.

“Well.” Dorian turned back to him and eyed the bottle with suspicion. “Is… that one of the bottles you adopted in the Fallow Mire?”

The Bull grinned, and the line of Dorian’s spine eased. “Yep! Already drank the other  one . Good stuff.”

“Must be. You _did_ dig it from under the remains of a decaying corpse, after all.”

“Hey, the cork’s secure.”

“Why some people are willing to consume all kinds of filth I’ll never understand. Although I suppose at this point I’ve been long enough in the South to not be surprised by anything.”

Not long enough, yet, the Bull thought  but didn’t say. “That  a  yes?”

For the first time in a long time Dorian directed a smile at the Bull – a real one, not that bullshit plastered over his mask. It softened his features, highlighted his beauty  with a gentle stroke . “ Oh well,  _when in south, do as southerners do_ . I suppose I might as well.”

They ended up on the Bull’s bed, leaning against the headboard, passing the bottle between them and spotting what constellations they could through the hole in the roof. It was nice, companionable.

It was when the bottle was one gulp short of empty that Dorian spoke, breaking a silence that had settled in the space between them.

“Bull,” he said, idly tracing the grooves in the bottle with his finger, making warm light follow them in pretty patterns. “Consider this a point of simple curiosity. But I've been thinking. If, as you told me the last time we- well, _then._ If you want nothing from me, why bother with all the flirting?”

Right, so,  okay . Dorian  _really_ had to ask?

“Listen, big guy. I don’t do sex as payment. But sex when both parties want it? _That_ works for me. Figured I’d see if it worked for you, too.”

“And supposing it does?” Could’ve been the fire, but Dorian definitely had a hue of red on his cheeks. But his eyes were intent, unblinking.

“Then we could work something good for both of us,” the Bull replied. He already envisioned it: Dorian laid down on his bed, naked and beautiful and properly appreciated. The Bull would show him that he could receive without owing anything to anyone. That he could be cared for. Should be cared for.

Dorian regarded him keenly. “You could have had me that night, you are aware.”

The Bull shook his head even before Dorian had finished the sentence. “Not that way. Not as payment for an imagined debt. Not as payment, full stop. Listen, Dorian. You don’t owe your body to anyone. Ever.”

“Oh,” Dorian said, a little breathless. He pushed the bottle aside and turned his whole body towards the Bull. “Won’t you kiss me?”

It still wasn’t the end  of their conversation – but,  this time, rather than  it having been cut short  at the root , the Bull had a feeling it was a beginning for  a  whole new branch.  Yeah, they still should talk, and yeah, if Dorian decided to come to him again, they’d have to establish some ground rules to keep it clear and simple, so that neither him nor Dorian would have to keep testing their footing.

But, for the moment, the Bull felt they’d reached a good point. Everything else was in the future, hypothetical; Dorian was there now.

Yeah. They’d make it work.

 

*


End file.
